In the Heat of a Summer Night
by King in Yellow
Summary: The past, present, and future all collide in a brief and confusing way in 1923 Chicago. Shego feels like she is being used, and she's right. Title taken from a line by Paper Lace. Best Enemies series.


Disney own the characters from Kim Possible.

My profile summarizes the Best Enemies universe.

**In the heat of a summer night**

Shego had moved the colored load to the dryer when she heard the basement door slam shut and smelled the ozone. She barely had time to curl up on the floor before the gut-wrenching sense of being on the tilt-a-whirl from hell hit.

Lying down helped. The first time it happened had produced a lesson in projectile vomiting she would never forget.

When her insides stopped moving the stench that assailed her nostrils was almost enough to make her sick. Dizzy, she got up from the filthy sidewalk and staggered over to lean against the building. Early 20th century was her guess -- further back than her first trip but not as far as her second. She would rest for a minute and then try and figure out what was happening. Her plans were interrupted, however, by a beat cop who had seen her staggering and wanted to know why she needed the help of a building to remain vertical.

"What's wrong with you," the red-haired man demanded.

"Not feeling well, officer," she reported truthfully. "This is going to sound stupid, but when am I?"

"You're in Chicago."

That was a piece of good luck, but didn't answer the question, "No, I asked when am I, not where am I."

He looked at her, puzzled, "July seventeenth."

"The year, man, the year."

"Nineteen twenty-three."

"Has Prohibition started yet?"

"Three years ago. What have you been drinking? That bathtub hootch is poison."

"Tell me about it," she groaned. Chicago in twenty-three… She hoped she didn't meet Al Capone. That thought saved both her life and that of the police officer -- the man with a tommy gun leaning out the window of the roadster speeding towards them was straight out of a gangster movie. She threw the policeman to the ground and put up a plasma shield that melted lead slugs.

The policeman had little sense of what was happening. He felt the heat, heard the firing of the machine gun, and saw a shifting curtain of luminous green that kept him from getting a clear look his attackers.

"What did you just do?" he asked in awe as the roadster squealed away.

"Besides saving your life?"

"Yes."

"I'm, uh, a magician. Do my act second half at the Stratford. I do that with mirrors, it kept them from seeing us so they missed."

"You don't look so good. You're sort of green."

"Hunger. That trick takes a lot out of me."

"Can I buy you something to eat?"

"Sure."

"Ham sandwich at the corner diner here?"

"Uh, how far to a Jewish delicatessen?"

"You still look kind of green," he remarked a half hour later as she finished off the pastrami on rye.

"Just part of the act. Say, bud, if you don't mind. What is your name?"

"Possible, John Possible."

_"Well, at least this one ended real fast,"_ she thought. "Do have a daughter named Nan, or Nana, or Nanette?"

He chuckled. "I'm not even married yet. I can't imagine using those names."

"Sorry, stupid question," Shego apologized. _"She wasn't born a Possible, she's going to marry your son."_

John Possible waved goodbye as he went back on foot patrol. Shego took a minute to orient herself before heading for the empty lot her dad would show her in seventy-five years as he told her about family history.

As near as she could tell someone, a 'bad guy', with a time machine was trying to eliminate her, or Kim. Perhaps it was to eliminate one of the twins. Hell, with time travel they could be trying to eliminate a grandchild of one of the twins. And someone else, a 'good guy', was using her to stop the plan. _ "'Good guy' sucks at providing an explanation,"_ she thought as she walked. _"And why does 'good guy' use the 'now' me, am I dead when the threat happens?"_ Her chief suspects for the role of 'good guy' were one of the twins or the redhead who had helped round up the twins when Wade and Drakken had developed a personal time machine. She made a mental note, _"Lipsky and Load, got to fry those two."_

The empty lot she knew in a pocket of urban blight was now a densely packed Irish neighborhood. Without an address to look for she strolled the neighborhood until she found "O'Ceallaigh Green Grocers."

The man behind the counter looked a bit younger than he did in the family albums her father would show her some day in the future. "Hello," she said cautiously, "this may sound odd, but my name is Sharon O'Ceallaigh and I think I'm a relative."

"Sure, the redhead said you'd be by. She left a package for you," he said tossing her a small brown paper bundle.

"The O'Ceallaighs don't always play nice," she began.

"But we stick together," he finished.

She said thanks and looked for a spot without witnesses to open the package. _"Redhead, rules out Sheki,_" Shego thought as she opened it. _"Be nice if 'good guy' provided directions."_ It had taken her a week to get home on the first trip.

She braced herself and punched the keys K-I-M. As the nausea came under control she heard the dryer chime signaling the load was done.

In the time dome two redheads laughed with herself. "Score another one for the best time cop ever! she laughed. "Ya know," one asked herself, "maybe this is why Eemah said she'd ground us if we ever sent her on a mission."

"Doesn't count if I'm not born yet."

A young man stuck his head in the room, "Jane?"

"Yes," they answered.

"Director Renton wants to see you. She's pissed, again."

--The End--


End file.
